Moving Home: Take Care of Your Pets

Posted on 10/05/2013

When you are moving home you have so many things to think about, that often it can be easy to consider what the best thing to do for your pets are. Here is a guide as to the best ways to look after your pets on moving day.

Dogs and cats:

On the day that you are moving make sure you lock your pet away safely in a separate room, with plenty of food, water, toys, blankets and litter trays, make sure they have everything they need to keep them happy. If you have more than one animal and they do not get along, you may need to keep them in separate rooms as you won't have much time to keep checking on them, and you certainly won't be able to stay in the room to prevent fights breaking out. When it is time to move your animal, put them in a suitable carrier to keep them safe. At your new property put your pet, in its carrier, in a lockable room, open the door to the carrier and leave the pet for a while to adapt. They will eventually come out of their carrier and start to look around the room. Again, make sure that you have put food and water down for them and consider giving them a treat. Leave your pet undisturbed in this room whilst you start unpacking.

Once the house is shut up and secure, open the door to the room your pets are in and let them come out in their own time. Try to keep them in your new home for about 3 weeks, if you let them out too soon they may try to find their way back to your old home and get lost. When you do let your pet out, do it in short intervals, keep an eye on them and call them back into the house after a few minutes.

Birds:

Birds can often become distressed when they are moved, therefore try to put them into the moving carrier an hour or two before the move to give them time to get used to it. Ensure that when they are transported the carrier is secured and the carrier they are in is covered with a blanket.

Reptiles:

When you are moving a reptile from one home to another the most important thing you need to do is to keep them warm, letting them get too cold could kill them, therefore set up the tank as soon as you can and ensure you turn on the heat supply as soon as you install the vivarium into the new home. Also try feeding your animal to help them to get over being moved.

Fish:

Fish are probably the most difficult of pets to move, they can be very temperamental and even the shortest of moves can lead to one or more fatality. If you have an overlap in owning your new property and your old one, try putting your fish into a smaller tank a few days before the move and set up the nigger tank in your new home. On moving day you can bag your fish up and put them straight into the new tank. If this is not possible, you will need to do everything on the day, therefore, on the morning, empty your tank and bag up your fish, ensure you move the fish tank as quickly as possible and leave someone in the new property to set it up and fill it with water. Put the fish back into the tank as soon as you can. To do this remember to leave the bag floating on top of the water in the tank for approximately 30 minutes before you cut the bags open and let the fish into the tank.